


a moment in her life

by dirgewithoutmusic



Category: Original Work, The Alliance Trilogy - E. Jade Lomax
Genre: F/F, F/M, Fluff, Multi, the peacock gang finally figures their emotions out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-28
Updated: 2016-11-28
Packaged: 2018-09-02 19:29:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8680564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dirgewithoutmusic/pseuds/dirgewithoutmusic
Summary: The water is still, composed; Lia is always envious. She startles when Marie takes a step away from her and says, “You danced with every last man at the ball. How about one last one for me?”
Lia laughs, confused. “Marie, you’re not a nobleman.”
“No,” she says, “But I still deserve a good-bye.”
They dance on the wide green-grey flagstones, a slow three step. Marie leads. Over the eastern palace wall, the sun begins to rise on Lia’s wedding day.
There is little more to that story: Marie drops her hand. There are dresses and hair and face painting; wicked little jokes to make the hours bearable (Marie is her maid of honor, because of course); an aisle; a ring; a kiss; a Courtly cheer.
There is a lot more to that story: Dereck is Crown Prince of Neria, but the thing that puts the biggest light in his eyes seems to be the way Lia looks over her shoulder at him, as they move to the dance room, and smiles an invitation.
There is more: the way Marie looks at her, cheery and happy for her and proud, like she means it, and she does, but it doesn’t mean she doesn’t go back to her room, that night, and do all that drinking she hadn’t done the night before.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [doctorcakeray](https://archiveofourown.org/users/doctorcakeray/gifts).



> I'm not sure this counts as fanfiction? It's a gift I wrote for @doctorcakeray, following a minor romance from the Alliance books-- but I also wrote the Alliance books, so. 
> 
> (And if you want to read them, the ebooks are available here, for free :) https://ejadelomax.com/the-alliance-trilogy/liar/ )

There is a moment in Lia's life, which, if Marie was present for it, the wiry haired duchess would’ve dropped something precious and gaped. As it is, Dereck is present and he drops a teacup while he sprays his mouthful of expensive oolong all over the carpet of the princess heir’s suite.

Lia is standing in front of him; she wouldn’t sit when she got home which is his only hint she’s preoccupied. She’s otherwise composed, breathing evenly, smiling pleasantly, and not dripping with steaming tea like Dereck is. She has just said, “I’m in love with Marie.”

Dereck is having a hard time maintaining his composure, due to a fit of coughing, which is due to the tea that has somehow gotten into his lungs. He coughs again, bends over and picks up his teacup–unshattered, praise the soft if now damp carpet–and sets it lightly beside the kettle. “Well, then,” he says, and coughs again. 

Lia smiles at him, honestly this time, and walks around the table. She sits on the arm of his chair, tucking her stockinged feet beneath her husband’s thigh. “I love you, too, silly.” She drops a linen napkin in his steaming lap. “We’ll just have to figure something out.” 

Dereck’s been Lia’s husband for six weeks, her friend for years, but he has known since three weeks into her acquaintance (John had never known, never noticed; Dereck hates the duke for many reasons but this is one) that when Lia says, “we’ll just have to,” you really, actually, entirely have to. 

* * *

Marie throws Lia a maiden’s party, the night before her wedding. All is white and noise and fumes of alcohol. It is only their closest friends, which is to say it is only every young woman who attends Court and who would be jilted if left off the invitation list (minus two who they mean to jilt, because the queen desired it). They meet Dereck’s party of young lords in the queen’s finest ballroom and Lia dances with every man but the man who will be her husband, as is custom.

Then the ladies steal away again, to dance and laugh and stagger and guzzle and tease and tear. Every maiden gives Lia a gift; every matron gives her a word of advice; raunchy and cynical and sometimes surprisingly heartfelt. 

Lia does not drink more than sips; she hasn’t, not in years. A loss of control has never been something that appealed. Those sips add up, of course, but she’s always had excellent stamina when it comes to composure. 

Marie doesn’t drink much, either. No one notices but Lia, of course, because of course Marie’s too busy being noticed as the life of the party for them to notice anything else. 

The sky is pitch, the palace lanterns are out, except for the ones footman carry to walk to party-goers home. Lia sees them out with smiles and thank-you’s; when she goes back inside, Marie is directing the servants’ efforts at clean-up.

The small ballroom is a seaside town after a hurricane, bits of flotsam tossed in the corners, strewn along the floor, linen napkins and pastry crusts, a green shawl, a single silver shoe. Lia touches the heeled shoe with the tip of her toe. 

“Well, then,” says Marie, behind her. Lia knows she has more to say than that, but she doesn’t ask; if she had known what it was, then, maybe she might have. Marie knows the last chance for that conversation was a long time ago; that there was never a chance at all.

They leave the servants to the cleaning and walk out to the lily pond gardens, arm in arm. The water is still, composed; Lia is always envious. She startles when Marie takes a step away from her and says, “You danced with every last man at the ball. How about one last one for me?”

Lia laughs, confused. “Marie, you’re not a nobleman.”

“No,” she says, “But I still deserve a good-bye.” 

They dance on the wide green-grey flagstones, a slow three step. Marie leads. Over the eastern palace wall, the sun begins to rise on Lia’s wedding day. 

There is little more to that story: Marie drops her hand. There are dresses and hair and face painting; wicked little jokes to make the hours bearable (Marie is her maid of honor, because of course); an aisle; a ring; a kiss; a Courtly cheer. 

There is a lot more to that story: Dereck is Crown Prince of Neria, but the thing that puts the biggest light in his eyes seems to be the way Lia looks over her shoulder at him, as they move to the dance room, and smiles an invitation. 

There is more: the way Marie looks at her, cheery and happy for her and proud, like she means it, and she does, but it doesn’t mean she doesn’t go back to her room, that night, and do all that drinking she hadn’t done the night before. 

* * *

It’s four weeks after the wedding when Marie, drunk on brandy in Lia’s dressing room, the first time they’ve spent quality time together in weeks, leans over and kisses her, hot and wet, clumsy except for a clever flick of her tongue against Lia’s lip. She doesn’t remember in the morning, but Lia does. The princess heir spends two weeks thinking about seven years of friendship in a different light, of loves, lifetimes, and priorities, and then pours Dereck a cup of tea. 

* * *

Once, Marie asks Dereck, who is hunched over paperwork while Lia sleeps on her shoulder, two pairs of bare toes poking out from under the sheets: “Why bother? You know you’re going to be king.”

Dereck scribbles something, then lifts his head to look at her when he speaks. He shrugs. “Things are more valuable if they are earned, rather than given.” 

There is a sleepy chuckle under Marie’s left ear and Lia says, “There’re reasons he’s worth loving, you know.”

Marie watches the line of his back in the morning sunlight, smiles. “Several,” she agrees. 

* * *

Dereck has been Lia’s husband for a year and a half. Marie has been–something else–nearly as long; and she has been Lia’s best friend for eight years. They travel north, the heirs to see their kingdom, the lovers to see one of theirs’ roots. 

Marie is stiff, running her fingers along her corset, clenching her toes in her shoes. She’s an inch taller than when she left, seventeen and angry, but that’s not why it looks different. She recognizes faces on the port town’s street and knows they don’t recognize her. 

The three of them hike out, three guardsman at their backs, to a little cove Marie half remembers. There is so much grey here; she’d forgotten the color, though, the vibrancy of dune flowers boldly defying the wind, bowing but laughing at it, the way sunlight flashes on the water, the inside of a shell Lia finds on the rocky cove shore. 

Marie stands and lets the wind pull at her dress. She tries to remember how to breathe, to hold her composure when the familiar salt breeze is as bad as tea in her lungs. 

Two slim arms wrap around her waist and she startles. “Lia,” she hisses, and the princess heir laughs. 

“I sent them away,” Lia says. “Such care for propriety, really. Not like we haven’t always been, mm,” she buries her nose in Marie’s wiry hair, laughs, “close.”   
She steps away, steps around her, and walks down the rocky shore to where the waves rolls in, white and frothy, ice-cold. They are the only ones on the beach, the princess, her husband, and her duchess. 

Lia drops her overcoat on the stones just above the waveline, then slips out of her satin slippers. Her overdress drops beside it, untied by quick, cold fingers.   
“Lia?” calls Dereck, amused, confused. 

She smiles at him over her shoulder, something wicked as Marie in her eyes. “We’re going swimming.” 

She unties the ribbon of her corset and tugs it loose, smirking at both of their reactions. The guards are on the blind side of the hillock, playing dice, and Lia has always been good at instilling quiet, closemouthed loyalty in the people around her. 

Lia drops the corset too and walks out past the first rolling of sea foam, bare feet rounding over the shore’s stones. Her fingers trail behind her, catching the loose fabric of her bloomers, and she smiles over her shoulder, the other queen of the peacocks. “Coming?”

And they do, they always do. 

Cold water surges around Marie’s calves, her thighs, dragging thin cotton underskirts across her. Lia laughs, bright as sun sparkle on the waves, dark as their churning depths; she leaps into Dereck’s arms sopping wet, and they all go down.

* * *

On the carriage ride back to their lodgings, Marie feels the salt drying onto her skin in taut crystals. She has felt alien, the past few days, remembering a girl made of fire in every breath of salt-soaked air, a proud and barefoot self that she thought she’d lost, that she’d thought she didn’t miss. 

She can still smell the salt, now, but it’s caught in the heavy fall of Lia’s dark hair, stained into the whorls of Dereck’s hands, tucked between calluses from sword on the left and quill on his right. She can feel it calling the girl with fire in her heart, the sweet sharp trumpet of sea salt, calling her home. She has her head on Dereck’s shoulder, her bare feet slipped under a still-damp skirt, toes pressed against Lia’s chilled thigh. 

Marie inhales the drying salt, answers. She’s home.


End file.
